The Prescotts in happier times Tony Blair's "Black Wednesday" now appears to involve black comedy. Given the Mirror's front page on Wednesday morning, maybe someone in the Hull Labour party should have thought twice about delivering 5,000 of these "Home Pride" leaflets to the local voters. But no, out they went.

For the non-Mirror readers among Hull's electorate, it offers a slightly different view of the deputy prime ministers' domestic life to those shots of him cavorting with his diary secretary down in London. This picture was, of course, taken in happier times for the Prescotts but its delivery, even if completely coincidental, has only added to the embarrassment felt in Labour circles in Hull.

According to the Hull Daily Mail, which printed the leaflet on its front page today, one east Hull Labour councillor, who did not wish to be named, said: "To be honest, this is the last thing we needed."

Along with the leaflet were separate mailshots of Mr Prescott (an "unsung hero", according to Tony Blair) standing shoulder to shoulder with local candidates that are not being seen as hugely helpful - to put it mildly. Whatever is happening to Mr Prescott in Westminster, in Hull Labour is desperately trying to hang on to control of the council against a strong push by the Liberal Democrats. Party workers must be praying that Mr Prescott's antics are seen by the good men and women of Hull as at worse a distraction and at best an irrelevance.